The Olly Murs factor: ‘If critics don’t like me that’s fine’

X Factor runner up Olly Murs seemed bound for Butlins. Now he’s a million-selling pop star. Julia Llewellyn Smith speaks to the unlikely entertainer.

Your eye col­or is sud­den­ly translu­cent, cheeks are flushed, there is soft rosy halo around your lash line, and your lips…your lips deep­en as blood rush­es through them and cre­ates a beau­ti­ful, trag­ic look. This lip hap­pens to work well for day or evening and does­n’t require you to cry! This method allows you to wear any lip col­or in a very nat­ur­al and believ­able way.

The secret to this look is cre­at­ing a soft halo around your lip line. Start by tak­ing your favorite lip­stick, stain, or chub­by lip pen­cil and sat­u­rat­ing the col­or just on the cen­ter of your lips. Then, take your fin­ger and blend the col­or over your lips as if you are rubbing 

I can’t wait for you to try the cry­ing lip. It’s so beau­ti­ful, it will bring you to tears.

Once the col­or starts dis­solv­ing into your lips, drag your fin­ger right on top of your lip line, bleed­ing the col­or into your lip—especially over your cupid’s bow. It’s like fin­ger paint­ing on a sen­su­al can­vas, lead­ing to the per­fect stain that will last for hours.

This tech­nique will also allow you to use those beau­ti­ful pops of col­or you’re always eye­ing but nev­er dare to buy, since the method will only cap­ture the color’s essence. My favorite three col­ors to use for the trag­ic lip are a coral red, a clas­sic mauve, and a deep wine. The first col­or I used in the pic­tures is YSL’s Rouge Pur Cou­ture Ver­nis À Lèvres Glossy Stain in 8 Orange De Chine (which also made an appear­ance in this week’s lip stain roundup!)—the per­fect orange-coral stain, but you must work quick­ly with blend­ing as it sets quick. The sec­ond look is the rosy-mauve Clé de Peau Beauté Extra Rich Lip­stick in 106. This creamy for­mu­la feels so heav­en­ly on the lips and imparts the per­fect “you-could-nev­er-go-wrong” col­or, giv­ing you a super-nat­ur­al, yet flat­ter­ing look. The third col­or is the Nars Vel­vet Mat­te Lip Pen­cil in Train Bleu. Swipe this vampy col­or dead-cen­ter on lips and give it a good rub down to trans­form your mouth into a dead­ly weapon that kills silently.

At the time, Murs seemed des­tined for But­lins. Instead, how­ev­er, like those oth­er X Fac­tor losers One Direc­tion (third in 2010), he went on to far out­shine the win­ner (Joe McElder­ry, cur­rent­ly play­ing Burn­ley). His detrac­tors say he sounds like a Jamiroquai/Maroon 5 cov­er band, but that hasn’t stopped him sell­ing 13 mil­lion records – includ­ing four num­ber-one sin­gles and three num­ber-one albums – and amass­ing a huge back cat­a­logue of catchy, main­ly ska-and-funk-influ­enced hits, such as Trou­ble­mak­er (co-writ­ten with Take That’s Steve Rob­son) and Heart Skips a Beat (fea­tur­ing hip-hop­pers Riz­zle Kicks). Now he’s in the mid­dle of a 30-date Euro­pean tour.